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The ‘Woe Is Me’ Disease

Funny thing about us OCD-addict types: When the going gets tough, we blame it on someone else. Call it the Woe Is Me Disease, where the sufferer is an eternal victim, forever screwed by everyone but his or her self.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/-q-MorIES5I

It used to be that it was impossible for me to see the problems as my own. It was always the result of something someone else did to me or failed to do for me. Eventually my disease settled into a pattern where I blamed myself for everything, to the point where I just kept beating myself instead of doing what was necessary to move on with life.

My Mom, who passed many of her OCD tendencies on to me, is a textbook example of victim-based OCD. This isn’t meant as an insult or criticism. It’s simply the way the problem manifests itself in her.

She lacks the ability to see things she doesn’t like as the simple way of life. Nothing is ever her fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. She is the perfect victim. In her own mind, anyway.

Seeing yourself as a victim every time the going gets tough is probably one of the worst things you can do. It holds you back, keeps you from improving yourself and makes you look pathetic in the eyes of people who don’t understand where the emotion comes from.

I’m reminded of this after getting a message the other day from an old friend who has been fighting his own battle with OCD. I won’t tell you who he is, but I’ll share what he wrote to me, because he is choosing to do something about his problem:

I recently finished my PHP for my OCD. It was a great program and glad my wife recommended that I enroll. So many things helped me change my way of thinking. One of the most important things I learned was to find ways to be proactive and a problem solver (where before I would be reactive and put my head in the sand).

Additionally, I realized that I suffer from “victim” type of thinking (such as this is not fair, I can’t handle this, etc…) and I need to think more like a “survivor” (I can handle this). I could go on and on about what I learned. I still plan on writing a “guest” column about my experience. I haven’t had much time to put my thoughts down on paper and it’s really important to me to do justice to describing my PHP experience.

I have a huge folder of handouts that I need to organize. I do know that just because I went through the program doesn’t mean I’m miraculously cured. From here I on out, I have many “tools” in my toolbox to handle whatever life throws at me.

I’m looking forward to that guest column.

He’s also right that people like us are never miraculously cured. We simply gather up a series of coping tools and pull them out when we need the help.

As a result, we stop being victims and become, as he put it, survivors.

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Morning After The Twisters

This is one of those mornings where I wake up uneasy. Several tornadoes tore through our state yesterday, but that’s not it.

Mood music:

I used to panic at the sight of a yellow-green sky, because that’s usually a sign of imminent tornadoes and hurricanes. But as I looked out the window, all I could muster was a “meh.” I guess that’s progress.

But then I had other things on my mind.

Yesterday I visited my father in the hospital, where he’s been since Sunday night. He suffered a stroke, and looked like it. His mind was clear, but one eye was covered with gauze and the other was drifting off to the side.

I left the hospital to go back to work and drove right into an hour-long traffic jam. It turns out the Red Sox were playing. When that happens, the area around Fenway Park becomes a sea of humanity and a graveyard for drivers trying to get from points A to B.

On the plus side, I didn’t erupt into a white-hot temper tantrum like I used to when getting stuck in traffic. I wasn’t happy. The F-word escaped my mouth a half dozen times, but I didn’t beat on the steering wheel and scream like I used to. More progress.

Still, it left me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. My mood sunk even further when I learned that Dad has some breathing difficulties AFTER I left.

I’m still in a bad mood, but at the same time I have hope. This stuff always works itself out, because God sends us helpers.

I mentioned this in a recent post about Mister Rogers:

Mr. Rogers learned a powerful lesson from his mother. I wish I had it in my head to focus on the helpers growing up. In hindsight, they were always there:

–The doctors and nurses who saved me from brutal bouts of Crohn’s Disease.

–The therapists who guided me through a diagnosis of OCD and showed me how to manage it.

–My family, especially my wife, and also my father and even my mother. My relations with the latter are in mothballs right now, but I think she tried to do her best for me. The help Erin has been to me is way too big to be measured here.

–My friends, who have always helped me make sense of things, made me laugh and done all the other things a person needs to get through the day.

–Many of the people in my faith community, who showed me how to accept God’s Grace, even if I still suck at returning the favor.

Fast-forward to the present. I’m uneasy, but I know that in the end, somehow, things will be alright.

My prayers are with those in the state that lost property and people in the tornadoes.

My prayers are obviously with my father.

The helpers are always around us, and they will help us through it all.

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What’s YOUR Insanity?

“Paint a garbage can platinum and underneath, it’s still a garbage can.” Nikki Sixx

In Chapter 3 of the AA Big Book, we’re introduced to an alcoholic named Jim. He has a successful business until he starts drinking at age 35 in an attempt to dull a nervous tick, and everything goes to hell.

From pages 35-36:

“In a few years he became so violent when intoxicated that he had to be committed. On leaving the asylum he came into contact with us.

“We told him what we knew of alcoholism and the answer we had found. He made a beginning. His family was re-assembled, and he began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through drinking. All went well for a time, but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life. To his consternation, he found himself drunk half a dozen times in rapid succession. On each of these occasions we worked with him, reviewing carefully what had happened. He agreed he was a real alcoholic and in a serious condition. He knew he faced another trip to the asylum if he kept on. Moreover, he would lose his family for whom he had a deep affection.

“Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell us exactly how it happened. This is his story: “I came to work on Tuesday morning. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a concern I once owned. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Then I decided to drive into the country and see one of my prospects for a car. On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar. I had no intention of drinking. I just thought I would get a sandwich. I also had the notion that I might find a customer for a car at this place, which was familiar for I had been going to it for years. I had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.

“Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn’t seem to bother me so I tried another.”

—

This is what we addicts call insanity. We get into this stupid idea that we can drink, eat or do drugs in perfect moderation like so-called normal people. That might mean trying to moderate drinking by ditching the hard stuff for just beer, or ditching red meat.

In the former case, you’re still getting smashed on a daily basis on beer. In the latter case — my case — you binge on everything that isn’t red meat until you explode.

At one point in my time as an out-of-control food addict, I decided to starve myself during the week and allow myself crazy binges Thursdays through Sundays. I looked forward to Thursdays because I could go into the Ground Round and order one of those colossal plates of nachos with every kind of junk dumped on top. That’s an appetizer meant to be shared between three or more people, but I would eat that myself, then chase it down with something healthy like a salad.

I’d carry on that way until the end of the weekend, and work out an hour-plus each day to balance it out.

It was but one variation of the insanity I had always practiced. As a teen and early 20-something I would binge on fast food for weeks and then starve myself for one or two weeks.

I usually binged in the car, trying to drive as I stuffed one arm into the bag of grease, flour, sugar and salt. That’s insanity too, because it doesn’t exactly promote safe driving.

It’s all about as crazy as putting whiskey in your milk and carrying on like you’re just drinking milk.

In the big picture, the problem isn’t the food, or the booze, or the drugs. It’s not necessarily the insanity of engaging in the binge.

Instead, the real problem — ground zero — is a deeper insanity that takes up residence in our souls, causing us the nervous ticks that make us do the stupid things we do. In the TV show “The West Wing,” recovered alcoholic Leo McGarry describes the nervous condition nicely:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwm6WJRPIQ&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

We all have some form of insanity within us. Some learn to manage it without substances. Many more don’t.

Which leaves me with the question:

What’s your insanity, and what does it make you do?

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Back Story Of THE OCD DIARIES

Since I’ve been adding new readers along the way, I always get questions about why I started this thing. I recently expanded the “about” section, and that’s a good starting point. But more of a back story is in order.

Mood music:

Before I started THE OCD DIARIES in December 2009 with a post about depression hitting me during the holidays, I had always toyed with the idea of doing this. The reason for wanting to was simple: The general public understands little about mental disorders like mine. People toss the OCD acronym around all the time, but to them it’s just the easy way of saying they have a Type-A personality.

Indeed, many Type-A people do have some form of OCD. But for a smaller segment of the population, myself included, it’s a debilitating disease that traps the sufferer in a web of fear, anxiety, and depression that leads to all kinds of addictive behavior. Which leads me to the next reason I wanted to do this.

My particular demons gave me a craving for anything that might dull the pain. For some it’s heroin or alcohol. I have gone through periods where I drank far too much, and I learned to like the various prescription pain meds a little too much. But the main addiction, the one that made my life completely unmanageable, was binge eating.

Most people refuse to acknowledge that as a legitimate addiction. The simple reason is that we all need food to survive and not the other things. Overeating won’t make you drunk or high, according to the conventional wisdom. In reality, when someone like me goes for a fix, it involves disgusting quantities of junk food that will literally leave you flopping around like any garden-variety junkie. Further evidence that this as an addiction lies in the fact that there’s a 12-Step program for compulsive over-eaters called Overeater’s Anonymous (OA). It’s essentially the same program as AA. I wanted to do my part to make people understand.

Did I worry that I might get fired from my job for outing myself like this? Sure. But something inside me was pushing me in this direction and I had to give in to my instincts. You could say it was a powerful OCD impulse that wasn’t going to quit until I did something about it.

I write a lot about my upbringing, my family and the daily challenges we all face because I still learn something each day about my condition and how I can always be better than I am. We all have things swirling around inside us that drive us to a certain kind of behavior, and covering all these things allows me to share what I’ve learned so others might find a way out of their own brand of Hell.

I’m nothing special.

Every one of us has a Cross to bear in life. Sometimes we learn to stand tall as we carry it. Other times we buckle under the weight and fall on our faces.

I just decided to be the one who talks about it.

Talking about it might help someone realize they’re not a freak and they’re not doomed to a life of pain.

If this helps one person, it’ll be worth it.

When I first started the blog, I laid out a back story so readers could see where I’ve been and how personal history affected my disorders. If you read the history, things I write in the present will probably make more sense.

With that in mind, I direct you to the following links:

The Long History of OCD

An OCD Christmas. The first entry, where I give an overview of how I got to crazy and found my way to sane.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill. How the drug Prednisone brought me to the brink, and how Prozac was part of my salvation.

The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom. Think you have troubles at work? You should see what people who worked with me went through.

The Freak and the Redhead: A Love Story. About the wife who saved my life in many ways.

Snowpocalypse and the Fear of Loss. The author remembers a time when fear of loss would cripple his mental capacities, and explains how he got over it — mostly.

The Ego OCD Built. The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire. Go ahead. Laugh at him.

Fear Factor. The author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

Prozac Winter. The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.

Have Fun with Your Therapist. Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.

The Engine. To really understand how mental illness happens, let’s compare the brain to a machine.

Rest Redefined. The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.

Outing Myself. The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.

Why Being a People Pleaser is Dumb. The author used to try very hard to please everybody and was hurt badly in the process. Here’s how he broke free and kept his soul intact.

The Addiction and the Damage Done

The Most Uncool Addiction. In this installment, the author opens up about the binge-eating disorder he tried to hide for years — and how he managed to bring it under control.

Edge of a Relapse. The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.

The 12 Steps of Christmas. The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory.

How to Play Your Addictions Like a Piano. The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?

Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility. As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he weigh in on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.

The Liar’s Disease. The author reveals an uncomfortable truth about addicts like himself: We tend to have trouble telling the truth.

Portable Recovery. Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.

Revere (Experiences with Addiction, Depression and Loss During The Younger Years)

Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies. The author reviews the imperfections of childhood relationships in search of all his OCD triggers. Along the way, old bullies become friends and he realizes he was pretty damn stupid back then.

Lost Brothers. How the death of an older brother shaped the Hell that arrived later.

Marley and Me. The author describes the second older brother whose death hit harder than that of the first.

The Third Brother. Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.

Revere Revisited.

Lessons from Dad. The author has learned some surprising lessons from Dad on how to control one’s mental demons.

The Basement. A photo from the old days in Revere spark some vivid flashbacks.

Addicted to Feeling Good. To kick off Lent, the author reflects on some of his dumber quests to feel good.

The lasting Impact of Crohn’s Disease. The author has lived most of his life with Crohn’s Disease and has developed a few quirks as a result.

The Tire and the Footlocker. The author opens up an old footlocker under the stairs and finds himself back in that old Revere basement.

Child of  Metal

How Metal Saved Me. Why Heavy Metal music became a critical OCD coping tool.

Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or Less. The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light.

Rockit Records Revisited. The author has mentioned Metal music as one of his most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Here’s a look at the year he got one of the best therapy sessions ever, simply by working in a cramped little record store.

Metal to Stick in Your Mental Microwave.

Man of God

The Better Angels of My Nature. Why I let Christ in my life.

The Rat in the Church Pew. The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. The author goes to Church and comes away with a strange feeling.

Running from Sin, Running With Scissors. The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

Forgiveness is a Bitch. Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Pain in the Lent. The author gives a progress report on the Lenten sacrifices. It aint pretty.

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Prayers for Old Friends

This morning my thoughts and prayers are with the Jones family, who mourn the loss of a daughter and sister.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKbPUzhWeeI&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Twenty years ago, I would hang out with this family for days on end.

Jeff Jones (he goes by Geoff Wolfe today) was my fellow Doors freak, and I remember many pleasant afternoon’s and evenings in their back yard. I was there for July 4 1991, which I remember because someone slammed into my car and took off that night. The car, a 1981 Mercury Marquis, never ran right again. I got pretty smashed that night.

The next year, we celebrated the 4th by blowing up a mannequin with M-80s.

I remember their children, Josh and Sarah, running around the house and yard.

We had a mutual friend in Bob Biondo, a kid who must have weighed in excess of 400 pounds. He had long, curly hair and always wore a cap and trench coat to hide his girth. He supplied me with a lot of weed and cigarettes and he was another mainstay in the Revere basement.

At some point in the early 90s I decided I was getting too grown up to hang around with these people. So I stopped coming around.

I moved to Lynnfield and made sure Biondo didn’t know where I lived. I simply stopped calling the Jones house.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I was beginning a deep slide into depression and addiction. I cut myself off from a lot of people and started to isolate myself.

Thanks to Facebook, I recently reconnected with the Jones family.

Yesterday, I received word that Sarah died.

As a parent, I shudder violently as I think of what Deb and Geoff are going through.

Fortunately, they have a strong Faith. As Deb said on her Facebook page yesterday:

“For those of you grieving … don’t! My daughter is at peace in the arms of her Lord. No more worries, no more pain. Remember the wonderful times you had with her. She was a very special person. Our lives will never be the same, but as for Sarah, she is fine.”

They can use a lot of prayers right now, so if you can spare some that would be appreciated.

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Firing Someone For Mental Illness Is An Outrage

If someone does a lousy job at work, they deserve to be fired. If someone does the job well but is fired because they have a mental illness, that’s an outrage.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0OGwOky2l941SPRkE56kU9]

This morning’s tirade brought to you by this comment posted on the LinkedIn NAMI group discussion board:

I lost my job as Director – Communications from a regional Chamber of Commerce after disclosing my 30 years of living and working with bipolar in Dec. 2009.

Now after trying to find another job, I applied for SSDI. I just got rejected with a letter saying,”The medical evidence in your file shows that your condition does cause restriction in your ability to function, however, while your condition prevents you from doing previous jobs, you still have the ability to do unskilled work.” 

I was diagnosed with bipolar in 1980, have bouts of depression, social anxiety, migraines, gerd and visable essential tremors in my hands and legs. I cannot stand unsupported for more than a few minutes and the tremors make me not want to leave my home and when I do anxiety worsens them. I can take medication to calm the tremors but those meds also negatively effect my memory, errors, and cognitive abilities. 

I know most people get rejected but I am almost 60 and have worked in public marketing communications at managerial levels since 1984. What should I do?

 I felt I needed to disclose as the work was socially demanding and my tremors showed.

I felt in disclosing that especially a Chamber of Commerce would be somewhat more understanding. Instead they became hostile and took away my startegic job duties and bumped me down to a typist.

Now, let’s start with some clarifications: If this person’s illness prevented them from doing their job, that does put the employer in a bind. I get that. If her condition has suddenly nosedived and it prevents her from doing what she used to do, that’s a tragedy.

The question I have is this: If someone loses their ability to do their job because of heart disease, a terrible injury or cancer, do they get dropped cold by their employer? Do they get treated in a hostile manner? Not from my experience.

I’ve known many people who developed a disease or got in an accident, and none lost their jobs. Their seat simply stayed empty and, in some cases, temps were brought in to do their work until they either recovered or resigned. They were treated with support.

If this woman did her job admirably for many years and just recently hit a period of intensified mental illness, she should be treated like the cancer or heart patient. To fire her because she’s “gone crazy” is, in my opinion, unacceptable.

It’s as insidious as, say, putting limits on coverage for mental health care.

These stories ratchet up the fear level for those suffering from depression, OCD, bipolar disorder and the like. It proves to the sufferer that mental illness is still viewed as a less-than-legitimate illness, something that’s more a figment of the sufferer’s imagination.

I’m not an expert. I can only base my opinion on personal experience. But I’ve heard enough horror stories from other people to know this crap is for real.

That’s exactly why I started this blog.

I chose to out myself and share my experiences so other sufferers might realize they are not freaks and that they have a legitimate, very easily explained medical problem that’s very treatable. It takes that kind of understanding for someone to get up and get help.

I try not to engage in political debate because this is such a personal issue, though sometimes I have to make a point on current events like I did when Health care Reform passed last year.

I do know this, though: Many good people have died because of mental illness. They were ashamed and afraid to get help because of the stupid notion that they are somehow crazy and either need their ass kicked or be institutionalized. So they try to go it alone and either end up committing suicide because their brains are knocked so far off their axis or they die from other diseases that develop when the depression forces the sufferer into excessive eating, drinking, starvation, drug taking or a combination of these things.

There’s also the ridiculous idea that a person’s workmanship becomes valueless when they’re in a depression. If someone misses work because they have cancer, they are off fighting a brave battle. They are fighting a brave battle, of course. No doubt about it.

But depression? That person is slacking off and no longer performing.

I’ve been able to debunk that idea in my own work circle. It helps that I’ve been blessed to work with exceptional, amazing and enlightened people. At work, I’ve gotten nothing but support. I do my job well, and that’s good enough for them. That’s how it should be.

Luckily for me, I got rid of my fear and anxiety long ago, so I’m going to keep sharing my experiences. It probably won’t force change  or tear down the stigma single-handedly.

But if a few more people get just a little more fight in them after reading these diaries, it will have been well worth the risks.

As for what the woman above can do about her situation, the folks in the LinkedIn forum offered some good advice. The best, in my opinion, came from mental health advocate Bonnie Neighbour:

You have two possible areas of recourse. You can sue for unlawful termination. I am not referring to that choice with the rest of this comment. 

Or you can appeal the SSDI denial. Something people need to k ow that is not commonly talked about is that, in deciding on your application for SSDI. the Social Security Dept. will only request records from your doctors, etc. one time. If the applicable records are not submitted within the time frame (and it’s wires short) the Social Security Dept. Decides upon (and they most likely will not tell you the time frame but it’s a matter of weeks) they will automatically deny the claim. You can appeal and get the appropriate records submitted for the appeal. Thus is one reason so many people are denied. 

For those who have not applied for SSDI but who may in the future, the prudent thing to do is collect all your records before you begin the application process and submit them all at once. If you depend on hour doctors’ offices to respond the a request by the Social Security Dept., the likelihood of receiving a denial based on incomplete records is huge. And you will most likely never know why. 

Good luck. 

A third option for you is to find your passion and start doing it — even if it’s volunteer only. For it is by living a fulfilling and passionate life that we stay healthy and can find and maintain mental health recovery.

You can pursue option three while considering option one or two.

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The Pink FEAR-ies Strike Again

Since Duncan’s favorite color is pink, I get pretty pissed when I see stories about the high-and-mighty going nuts because they mistake a color for a gender or sexual orientation.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwQ0fVShIZk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The latest example is this J. Crew ad, where a mom is painting her son’s toe-nails hot pink:

People have been going absolutely crazy over this, suggesting that the boy will be scarred for life and need thousands of dollars of counseling when he gets older.

And then there’s the fear that — shudder — the kid will grow up to be gay. American society will decay around the edges, and we’ll all be dope-slapped for this on Judgement Day.

I always knew nail polish was nothing but trouble, a bottle of sin dropped on our laps by Satan himself.

Here are a few bullshit comments from an article in Yahoo’s Lookout blog:

“Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your ‘innocent’ pleasure,” Dr. Keith Ablow wrote in a Fox News op-ed. “If you have no problem with the J. Crew ad, how about one in which a little boy models a sundress? What could possibly be the problem with that?”

Erin Brown of the Media Research Center took the criticism a step further — after being sure to remind readers that J. Crew is a fashion favorite of First Lady Michelle Obama — accusing the company of exploiting young Beckett to advance the cause of “liberal, transgendered identity politics.”

Good fucking grief.

There are more reasoned comments in that article, stuff that I agree with:

Sarah Manley, who set off a similar firestorm last Halloween after posting photos of her young son dressed up as his unconventional idol: Daphne from “Scooby Doo,” said of the J.Crew ad, “If the roles had been reversed and the photo…had been of a little girl playing in the mud with trucks, nobody would have batted an eye.”

You know what? she’s absolutely right, as is  Jeanne Sager, who wrote the following on the parenting blog The Stir:

“So go back and look at that picture in the J.Crew ad, will you? What do you see? Do you see pink nail polish on a boy? Or do you see a little boy named Beckett, with beautiful blond curls, and a mom who looks like she is impossibly in love with her kid, in the very best way? Because that’s what I see.”

That’s what I see, too.
This is one of those issues where Duncan has taught me a lot. 
He has a pink winter hat and a pink knitted coin pouch. When a priest saw him wearing the hat last year, a look of concern came over him. “Well, I guess there’s still time,” he said.

One Sunday, Duncan showed the school principal his coin pouch. “That’s an interesting color,” she said. The pouch was stuffed with coins Duncan couldn’t wait to put in the poor box.

I once asked Duncan why pink is his favorite color. His answer: “Because girls like pink. And I like girls.” Innocent words from a 7-year-old boy.

And yet there are those who try to tell me this is dangerous. He could grow up gay.

This is how you start a child down the path of social anxiety, pain and dysfunction. You take something as innocent as a color choice and start suggesting there’s something wrong with him.

When I was a kid, I got hassled over the more old-fashioned stuff, like being overweight. I also kept believing in Santa Clause longer than the other kids my age. Being fat meant being damaged, unworthy of the same respect everyone else got. In high school, I used to watch teachers belittle students who dressed like hippes. The kids were drug-injecting wastoids as far as some of the teachers were concerned. I knew some who were, but I knew others who were not.

Make a kid feel stupid over how they look or what they wear and after awhile they’re probably going to start believing they are damaged goods.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the pink fear crowd have their hearts in the right place. They just want children to be happy and grow into “normal” and happy adults.

But their thinking is flawed.

Here’s my take on the J. Crew ad: It looks like a typical fashion ad: over the top, depicting people with overly big smiles. But it’s harmless.

Hell, I remember painting my own finger nails red as a teenager because I wanted to look like people in the glam metal bands that were all the rage in the 1980s. It was harmless. And trust me, it did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for girls. I was having no luck with the opposite sex in high school, mind you, but nail polish had nothing to do with that.

As for Duncan, he can like whatever color he wants to like. If you have a problem with that, you can come talk to the boy’s ugly, still overweight Dad.

I’ll probably tell you you’re being shallow and judgemental. I might even tell you you’re being a dickhead.

You’ve been warned.

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When Does It Get Better? (A.K.A. Happiness After Suicide)

I got a note last night that moved me enough that I need to get it out here. It was from a woman who was close to Zane Mead, who I wrote about a few months back.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NlGbLbUl_w&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

I don’t remember Tammy Digan from back in the day, but that doesn’t surprise me. I was mostly a loner back then. Except for a few close friends, I kept to myself. But I remember Zane.

Here’s what she said in the comment section of that post:

Yesterday I woke up as I do any other day, however my mood was different. I found myself missing Zane very deeply. The way I felt, was as if he has just passed within the last few weeks. I cried and cried for him. It was as if he were calling out to me. Finally I decided to pay him a visit.

When I arrived at the cemetary I parked in my usual spot and immediately began speaking to him as I walked to his grave. For whatever reason, I could not find him. Finally, it was starting to get cold as the sun was beginning to set. I was at the very back of the cemetary and had decided to make one last search and I would go in and out of each row this time. I had been here many times before, so I could not understand what the problem was, other than my blured vision from the tears.

As I began my quest, I told Zane that this would be my last pass through because it was getting too cold out and I was beginning to lose hope on finding him and perhaps he did not want to be found and only remembered on this day. As I took the next corner, there was his headstone, just as I remembered it. Zane and I had a relatively lengthy conversation and a lot of tears were shed.

Zane passed on April 8, 1988.

He was one of the most honest and kind people I have ever known. He had an amazing ability to make you smile. You could not help but to love him. Thank you for you post, it has helped me to not have to mourn his loss alone.

Even though it has been so long, I think this is one loss that will bring me to tears until the day I join him.

Tammy Digan

I know where she’s coming from. When another friend, Sean Marley, took his life eight years after Zane’s death, I visited his grave constantly.

I was very angry with him for years after his death. I swore at his gravestone a lot. I spat on the grass in front of it once. Most of the time, I talked to him, though in hindsight I was really just talking to myself, repeating all the worries in my head that really had nothing to do with Sean. My brain would spin on its stem over fears that I’d never measure up and love people the way you’re supposed to. I guess I was just venting to him like I did when he was alive.

I’m often asked how I’ve been able to find happiness after his suicide and my brother’s death. It was a long road, to be sure. But a lot has happened since then.

With Michael and Sean, I’m not sure I ever really recovered. To this day, I’m cleaning up from the long cycles of depression and addiction that followed me through the years.

Along the way, good things happened to fill in the black holes. I married the love of my life. We had two beautiful children. My career hummed along nicely for the most part.

In a strange way, Peter’s death, terrible and depressing as it was, marked the beginning of a long, hard path to recovery. It was my behavior in the months after his death that made me realize something was seriously wrong with me. It’s almost as if Peter’s spirit pushed me into dealing with things.

Peter always was a pushy motherfucker.

I’ve never been able to piece together a general timeline of the grieving process. It turns out we’re not supposed to know about such things. That would be cheating.

I do know that IT GETS BETTER.

Understanding that as I do, I’ve discovered a few things about getting through the grieving process. Here’s what I’d suggest to those going through it now:

–First, go read the past year of entries in “Penny Writes… Penny Remembers.” If you can’t learn how to live in the face of horrible loss from the writings of Penny Morang Richards, I got nothing else for you.

–Take a moment to appreciate what’s STILL around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. If the death you just suffered should teach you anything, it’s that you never know how long the other loves of your life will be around. Don’t waste the time you have with them, and, for goodness sake: 

–Don’t sit around looking at people you love and worrying yourself into an anxiety attack over the fact that God could take them from you at any moment. God holds all the cards, so it’s pointless to even think about it. Just be there for people, and let them be there for you.

–Take care of yourself. You can comfort yourself with all the drugs, alcohol, sex and food there is to have. But take it from me, giving in to addictions is nothing but slow suicide. You can’t move past grief and see the beauty of what’s left if you’re too busy trying to kill yourself. True, I learned a ton about the beauty of life from having been an addict, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wish that experience on others. If there’s a better way to cope, do that instead.

–Embrace things that are bigger than you. Nothing has helped me get past grief more than doing service to others. It sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s not. When I’m helping out in the church food pantry or going to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings and guiding addicts who ask for my help, I’m always reminded that my own life could be much worse. Or, to put it another way, I’m reminded how my own life is so much better than I realize or deserve.

This isn’t a science.

It’s just what I’ve learned from my own walk through the valley of darkness.

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Facebook Depression: It Happens

A post from one of my Facebook friends got my attention the other day. He was sharing a new item about something called “Facebook depression” and if his comment is any indication, I don’t think he was buying it:

“Really? Facebook depression? Pardon me but ‘Assholes!'”

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b93qfTYbROg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Here’s a snippet from the article, which appeared on WCVB Channel 5’s news site:

According to a recent poll, more than 20 percent of teens log on to their favorite social media site more than 10 times a day. Now a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics warns social media can lead teens to sleeplessness and depression. The report urges pediatricians to plug in to potential problems.

The suicides of 17-year-old Phoebe Prince and 11-year-old Carl Walker put a new spotlight on bullying and uncovered a dark side of social media, where insults and taunting are inescapable. While those cases may be extreme, a new report warns parents and doctors that sites like Facebook can lead to depression in teens.

“Facebook seems to be an amplifier for those feelings,” said Dr. Gwenn O’Keefe, the report’s author. “They’ll think ‘People don’t like me, I’m not pretty or studly. How come I only have 100 friends and she has 300?’ Those thoughts are going to amplify that sense of social isolation and make it get worse,” said O’Keefe.

Take it from someone who’s been through his share of depression: There’s something to this notion of Facebook depression.

My biggest bouts of depression — back when I was really out of control — came well before Facebook and Twitter came along. But today, when I have the more minor episodes of depression (for me, it’s a chronic side-effect of OCD), I totally feel the power something like Facebook has over my mood.

I touched on it in an earlier post called “Facebook Un-friend Syndrome” but the focus there was largely on how the friend count can become an OCD trigger.

Since I write about technology for a living, I’ve learned a lot about the psychological side of social media. The bad guys of cyberspace didn’t need a college degree to know that with the right headline, you can easily dupe a person into clicking on a malicious link that’ll leave your computer infected.

People are duped with fake news headlines, especially the gossipy kind. But they’re also duped — all the time on Facebook — by messages and links that promise to show you who exactly has un-friended you or who said what about your sexual prowess (or lack of it).

Meanwhile, a lot of people have gotten so hooked on things like Facebook and Twitter that these places have become more than just a computer activity — they have become part of the real world.

That’s especially the case for younger people who don’t recall a time before social networks existed.

The notion that things that go down on Facebook can leave a kid depressed — even suicidal — is very plausible against this backdrop.

If there were no Facebook, many of these people would probably go into depressions about other things. But I think this is a legitimate issue for the medical community to chew on — for adults as well as kids.

I have found — for me personally — that it’s good to have a code of conduct for what I can and can’t do on social networks. It’s not a silver bullet by any stretch. But it helps me:

–Don’t bitch about the little things. There’s a ton of drama on Facebook already, and there’s a lot of drama in this blog. I’m not going to complain about the little things on top of that.

–Never complain about work. I wouldn’t anyway because I love my job, but I see work grievances on Facebook all the time, and it’s just not smart when you consider that the boss is probably watching.

–Keep the sex life to yourself. The reasons for this are simple. I’m an ugly guy with a hairy back and a bald head. I’m not about to gross people out or scare them. Hell, I get scared and grossed out when thinking of myself in a romantic context. Yet there are folks out there who think people really want to know about their sex lives. I’m not talking about someone who shares their joy over a new romantic relationship or the sadness of a romance that dies. I’m talking about those who give the several-times-a-day, blow-by-blow account of the ups and downs. I’m happily married and my wife loves me despite the fact that I’m funny looking. That’s all anyone needs to know — or would ever want to know.

–Do you really care about what I ate for dinner? Well, given the nature of this blog and the fact that I focus a lot on my binge-eating addiction and the food plan I live by today, I guess you would care. But I’m also sure I’d piss you off if I mentioned what I was about to eat before each meal. I get annoyed when other people do it. My younger brother is a chef and he talks about it a lot. But that’s different, because cooking is his craft.

–Politics. I love to talk politics with people, especially those who really know what they’re talking about. But some folks will take their disdain for Democrats or Republicans too far. Being a moderate myself, I think both political parties are damaged beyond repair. But I try not to get mean, arrogant or hateful about my positions. I’ve un-friended people for being that way.

– Religion: I’m pretty sure people have un-friended me for sharingmy Faith. I can’t get around it because my Faith is at the core of everything I do, especially when it comes to marriage, parenthood and my program of recovery. If someone has dropped me because they don’t believe in God and they think I’m an idiot, I don’t care. I’m not about to change on this one. 

Here’s what I will continue to do on Facebook and Twitter:

–Share some of the things my kids say. Because my kids are pretty damn witty.

– Post my blog entries, three times a day. The blog is one of the things I have to offer people. It’s one of the things I’m on here to promote. I push out each entry three times a day, to ensure it’s seen by those who do most of their social networking in the morning, at lunchtime or in the evening.

–Post my security articles. This is my livelihood. Many of my connections are security people, so there’s no getting around this one. If someone un-friends me because they don’t want so much information about information security, I’m cool with that.

–Share family and travel pictures. Who doesn’t do this?

Of course, expecting teenagers to live by what I just mapped out is unrealistic.

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Lies Of The Not-So-Beautiful People

I’ve been hooked this week on the new Sixx A.M. song “Lies of the Beautiful People.” The video includes a lot of the photography that inspired the upcoming album and book, “This is Gonna Hurt.”

Note: The videos below, when you click on them, will direct you to watch on YouTube. Please do, since you have to see it to get the point of this post.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxMHtjQW6ZQ&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

In interviews, Nikki Sixx describes his passion for photography and how he was drawn to subjects that most “normal” people would find freakish. He photographed people with a variety of deformities and other features most people would find grotesque or even humorous.

This week he released the first two parts of a documentary on the project. In part one, he describes how the projects he embarked on brought him back to things in his childhood that affect him to this day:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJsJhTTczNk&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Part 2 focuses on a person named St. Goddess Bunny, who describes the rough life he has lived, including a lot of physical abuse.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLNyvPqKHOo&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Reviewing this material takes me back to my own past. I was never one of the beautiful people the new song describes. But my perceptions and reactions to people who were different could be just as grotesque as the song describes.

The “Lies of the Beautiful People” are also the lies of the plain, average, ugly, fat and poor people. In my case, and that of others I’ve known, it becomes about knowing you’re ugly and mis-shaped and tormenting other, similar people just so you can feel better about yourself.

It’s a subject I’ve covered before, particularly in the posts “The Bridge Rats,” “Stiffy” and “Welcome to the Outcast Club.”

I was quite a prick to a kid named Stevie Hemeon. I used to punch him in the Theodore Roosevelt School yard because he was one of the few kids I was strong enough to hit. He never deserved it. Yet he still hung with me, kind of how high school chum Aaron Lewis did later on. I did it because he seemed weaker and weirder than me.

Stiffy had a monotone voice and was freakishly thin. People were terrible to him. Including me. The name allegedly comes from him getting an erection in the shower of the boy’s locker room, but I wasn’t there and tend to doubt it.

I haven’t seen or heard from him since the day we graduated nearly 22 years ago. I often wonder where he is, what he’s doing and if he’s ok.

He was the kid everyone made fun of — brutally. And I was probably one of the biggest offenders for the first two and a half years of high school.

On the surface he took our taunts with an expressionless face. How he reacted out of view I can only imagine.

There were a lot of bullies at Northeast Regional Metro Tech (it used to be “Vocational School” and we all called it the Voke) and I was made fun of a lot. I was picked on for being fat, for my lack of skill in sports and other things real or imagined.

So what did I do after being picked on? I turned around, found the kids who were more “pathetic” than me and attacked them verbally and physically. Mostly verbal, but I remember throwing punches at some point. Some of it was the reaction to getting picked on. Most of it was from the growing chip on my shoulder over my brother’s death and other unpleasantness at 22 Lynnway in Revere.

By junior year, I had lost a lot of weight and grown my hair long. I was deeply into metal music by then and I started to make friends among some of the so-called metalheads. He had also latched onto metal as a refuge from his pain (he was also pretty religious), and we started to relate over music.

Junior and senior year I made a big effort to be nicer to him, and in the mornings before classes began I would hang out with him. Or, I should say, I let him follow me around. I was still a jerk but was trying to be nice because I was under the influence of another brother, Sean Marley.

These and other memories remind me that we have to be better — much better — to the people around us. It’s what’s inside that counts.

I’m glad Sixx is tackling this issue. He’s inspiring me yet again.